Highland Archive Service offers a range of activities and events for all ages across our four archive centres and online. Find out what’s on and how you can join in…
We do not charge for most of our activities and events, but Highland Archives Service is a charity and we rely on your donations to support our work. If you would like to make a donation to any of our archive centres, or our history and heritage website Am Baile, click on a button below to take you to our donation pages.
Thank you for your support.
What's On... May to December 2024
The Story of Lord Lovat & Duncan Forbes
- 14th August 2024
- 7pm
- Online
- Free (donations welcome)
- Booking essential (see link below)
Join us online to hear about two key figures of the Jacobite era – ‘the Old Fox’ and ‘the Old Woman’.
Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, and Duncan Forbes of Culloden were central to the story of Jacobite Risings and at the heart of many of the 18th century’s most tumultuous events. Join Highland Archive Service Family Historian, Anne Fraser, and Community Engagement Officer, Lorna Steele-McGinn, to hear about their fascinating lives and dramatic deaths – one on the scaffold and the other of ‘heartbreak’.
The event is free, but booking via Eventbrite is essential. To book click here.
For further information please call Highland Archive and Registration Centre on 01349 781130 or email [email protected]
Jacobite Festival at Highland Archive Centre
- 21st August
- 2pm - 4pm
- Highland Archive and Registration Centre
- Free (donations welcome)
- Booking is only essential for guided tours
This event is a drop-in afternoon with a display of documents showing the role Inverness and the wider Highlands played in the Jacobite Risings of 1688/89, 1715, 1719 , and 1745/46. The story will be told through a diverse range of archive material from church minutes, town council claims for compensation, personal statements, maps, battle plans, and other documents. This event is free and forms part of the national Jacobite Festival. More information on the Jacobite Festival can be found here.
For further information about the event at the Highland Archive Centre, please call us on 01349 781130 or email us at [email protected]
Lunchin with the boys:
Kaid Maclean, shinty-hurling, and the Tailteann Games, 1924
- 28th August 2024
- 7pm
- Highland archive Centre
- Free (donations welcome)
- Booking not essential
Join Dr Hugh Dan MacLennan for an illustrated talk on John ‘Kaid’ Maclean, shinty player, war hero, and referee.
The talk is free, but donations are welcome.
Family History
Classes
- Starting the 2nd (online) and 4th (in person) of September 2024
- See below
- Highland Archive Centre and Online
- £44/£36 for HLH members
- Booking is essential (see below for details)
Held weekly over four weeks, either in person or via Zoom, our classes show you how to use our records to research your family history. Subjects covered include: statutory records, census records, church records, memorial inscriptions, wills and testaments, and archive records.
Online classes will be held on Mondays from 7pm to 9pm starting on the 2nd of September. In person classes will be held at Highland Archive Centre in Inverness on Wednesdays from 10am to 12pm starting on the 4th of September.
Costs are £44 for the block of four classes or £36 if you are a HLH member. To book your place (booking is essential) call Highland Archive Centre on 01349 781130 or email [email protected]
Doors Open Days 2024 at Highland Archive and Registration Centre
- 7th September
- 10am - 4pm
- Highland Archive and Registration Centre
- Free (donations welcome)
- Booking is only essential for guided tours
The 2024 theme for DoD is Heritage of Routes, Networks and Connections. Society is built on networks that have allowed for exchanges in trade, beliefs, knowledge, innovations, and shared cultural and artistic practices. This year we travel these roads, routes and paths of history to discover what we can learn from them today.
On the day you can drop in at anytime to view a range of archive material, guided tours of the building run at 10.30am, 12.30pm and 2.00pm (tours must be booked, call 01349 781130 or email [email protected] to book a tour), and for children there will be an archive scavenger hunt through the building.
Seinn Spioradail Exhibition
- 24th June to 11th November
- See archive centre opening times
- Skye and Lochalsh Archive Centre
- Free (donations welcome)
- Booking is not essential
Aberdeen University’s Dr Frances Wilkins’s research into traditional forms of Gaelic singing, including hymnody, Gaelic psalmody and spiritual bàrdachd which are diminishing in Hebridean communities, forms the basis of this new interactive exhibition which explores the incredible wealth of sights, sounds and memories of spiritual singing and song writing in everyday life in Highland and Island communities.
Visitors can learn more about sacred song traditions of the region and explore sound recordings, film, objects, and a digital archive, soundmap and interactive virtual tour.
The exhibition, co-curated with designer Ronan Martin, will visit Skye & Lochalsh Archive Centre as part of its Hebridean tour.
For further information please call Skye and Lochalsh Archive Centre on 01478 614078 or email [email protected]
Thurso Camera Club Exhibition
- July
- Monday to Friday 9am - 5pm
- Nucleus: The Nuclear and Caithness Archives
- Free (donations welcome)
- Booking is not essential
Nucleus: The Nuclear and Caithness Archives is delighted to host Thurso Camera Club’s 2024 Photographic Exhibition at the archive building in Wick.
The exhibition enjoyed a hugely successful run in the Thurso Art Gallery space within Thurso Library in April and May this year.
The club was keen to bring the exhibition to the east of the county and found the perfect home in Nucleus’s community hub. The exhibition is open from Monday to Friday, from 9am to 5pm.
A wide range of subjects is featured, from Caithness landmarks and landscapes, to wildlife, self-portraits, and sporting action to name a few.
The exhibition will run throughout July, so if you’re looking for something to do over the summer holidays please pay us a visit.
Archive Afternoons
- The third Wednesday of the month
- 2.30pm - 4.30pm
- Lochaber Archive Centre
- Free (donations welcome)
- Booking is not essential
From the 18th October onwards, the Lochaber Archive Centre will be launching its own monthly Archive Afternoons. These afternoon’s will give the public the opportunity to learn something new, chat with staff and other visitors, and interact with our collections in a fun and informal atmosphere.
Everyone is invited to come and explore the fascinating history of Lochaber and its surroundings.
For further information please call Lochaber Archive Centre on 01397 701 942 Archives or email us at [email protected]
Archive Afternoons
- Every Wednesday
- 1pm - 4pm
- Nucleus: The Nuclear and Caithness Archives
- Free (donations welcome)
- Booking is not essential
Joint the archive team at Nucleus: The Nuclear and Caithness Archives every Wednesday to explore the past, reminisce with friends and enjoy a cuppa and a biscuit. Each week archives from our collections will be on display in the public searchroom.
Everyone is invited to come and explore. Tea, coffee and biscuits will be available in The Hub at the front of the building, alongside displays of digitised vidoes and photographs showing Caithness in the past.
For further information please call Nucleus: The Nuclear and Caithness Archives on 01955 602 444 or email [email protected]
Online Exhibitions
Our online exhibitions are curated by our archive teams from all four archive centres. Using our rich and varied collections, the exhibitions cover an array of topics from The Battle of The Braes to the history of modern education in Scotland. To explore our online exhibitions click on any image below.
Regular Features
Learn With Lorna
Learn With Lorna, our series of short films about the documents in our collections, is broadcast weekly on Facebook with all films subsequently made available on the High Life Highland YouTube channel.
All the films to date can be found here.
- Every Thursday
- 11am - 12pm
- Online (see any of our Facebook pages)
- Free (donations welcome)
- Booking is not required
